If ever there was a fighter who should have come out of the game financially secure, it’s Clinton Woods. He was a bit of a lad in his younger days too — gave up the sport for a few years before turning over and was getting into all sorts on the weekends. All things considered, it makes what he went on to achieve even more impressive. He won a world title at a time when the UK had barely a handful of champions, fought the biggest names in the division, and did it all the hard way. Yet somehow, he never really cashed in. The night he finally beat Johnson on a Warren card, Frank was already gearing up to announce Johnson v Calzaghe — another huge fight Clinton missed out on through no fault of his own. It’s a shame, because he was the definition of a proper pro — durable, humble, never ducked anyone, and represented British boxing at world level when there wasn’t the same money or exposure there is now. If Woods had come along 10–15 years later, he’d have been a pay-per-view regular and set for life. And make no mistake, he’d have been more than a match for any of the current crop of light heavies — Smith, Yarde, Buatsi, Hutchinson, Parker, Richards, Arthur, the lot of them.
Was always we gutted we never got the Roy Jones Jr rematch over here in Sheffield that was always doing the rounds in 2008/09-ish. Obviously a few years too late by that point, but would’ve been great fun. Think Hobson didn’t have a TV deal at the time which stopped it from happening.
Johnson got the Jones fight after beating Clinton for the vacant title following their first two fights — and he effectively ended Roy, proving the Tarver knockout was no fluke. I still remember being shocked seeing Jones like that; at his peak he was untouchable, and the Johnson KO was even more brutal than the Tarver one because he was completely out cold. It could so easily have been Woods in that spot. In their first fight, he arguably dropped Johnson in the last round but it wasn’t counted, and if just two judges had seen a round or two differently in either of those first two fights, he’d have won both of them. Real sliding doors moment for both of them, and Johnson went on to book and win the big-money fights for himself — beating Jones and Tarver back to back.